The Ledger
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why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Thazhmon: If you can't pay users to use it, they won't pay
“You should start with, can you give the product for free? You should start with, can I pay you to use the product? If I can't pay you to use the product, there's no scenario that you can charge for the product.”
Thazhmon: Industry outsiders have an advantage building global financial infrastructure
“The fact that you're an outsider is a really good thing because you don't look at it the same way. If I had 25 years of banking experience, I'd just be so coded in a certain way of like, well, this is deep. I can't do anything more. Let's just do one country, …”
Thazhmon: Jeeves operates in 25 countries and seeks full bank charter
“We covered 25. We are filing to become a full bank by next year as well.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves reached 80% gross margins and $3B TPV in 2023
“The reason we're here today and growing and have, you know, 80% gross margins, three billion TPV, et cetera, was because we made that really hard call in 20, 23.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves needs only local BIN changes to expand into new countries
“What we do at GEOS that's very unique is the first three sit on our own spec using different partners. So when we go from Mexico to Colombia, we only need to change number four, the bin.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves investors went pencils down on funding day due to Ukraine war
“I remember our last round, it was supposed to be funded on end of February, 20, 22, which was, by the way, when the Russia-Ukraine, you know, invasion war, etc, started. And that was another whole cycle where You know, people were just like literally the day o…”
Thazhmon: Jeeves gains exponential value with every new country it adds
“The value of Jeeves is better the more countries we cover, because even for that company in Mexico, now we cover Spain, big corridor Spain to Mexico. We cover that. We can give you a card in Spain. Your founder lives in UK. We can give him a card. Like, so it …”
Thazhmon: Early-stage founders only need to be 60% good at everything
“I think founders have to be 60% good at everything. And product was a great example. I would be on every single call every day. We had two standups, obviously not good enough to scale it, but good enough to get it off the ground. I did the UX. I did the UI. I …”
Thazhmon: Jeeves initially validated foreign demand by eating US card FX fees
“We started shipping U.S. Cards, and we just ate the FX. It's not a good business model, but it shows there's demand. And then I'm like, okay, now let's go get licenses.”
Thazhmon: Urban Innovation Fund led Jeeves' $4.5M seed with $1M check
“We had one lead urban innovation fund that put in about a million out of that. I think it was 4.5. It was, if I remember correctly, everything else was small checks and you have to do a lot of work to manage it.”
Thazhmon: International businesses cannot sustainably rely on US-issued credit cards
“US cards work everywhere. It's just not a long-term, like you can't really run a business using US cards because you'll just get two percent fees on everything you do, right? Like, which is not sustainable for a business, but you can absolutely use the card.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves raised $250M across three rounds in 12 months
“We raised three rounds in 12 months. We raised two hundred fifty million dollars in 12 months, right?”
Thazhmon: Jeeves Pay generates about 40% of company revenue
“We launched this product called Jeeves Pay. And today that's about 40% of our revenue.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves ran airport banner ads in Mexico for five years
“And even today, if you go to the Mexican airport, you'll see our ads when you come in. And we've had that for five years, and it is, well, incredibly cost effective.”
Thazhmon: Jeeves selects expansion markets using three specific criteria
“We had three rules for countries we wanted to operate in. So one, do they have what we call fintech we want, which is ability to look at bank accounts, open banking. There's some way to reduce the risk so we know what we're looking at... Two is the government …”
Thazhmon: Jeeves hit $1M ARR in 6 months, $7M in 1 year
“So we did a million in about six months and I think we were doing seven million in a little bit past a year.”
Thazhmon: VC pulled $3M at $15M post term sheet during COVID onset
“I was starting this and I had talked to a VC fund and they said, look, we'll give you three million dollars for a fifteen million post. And that's it. We'll take the whole round. Great, like ideas resonating, blah, blah. And then COVID happened, right? And COV…”